THE WARRIOR EMPRESS (aka "Saffo, Venere di Lesbo") -- movie review by Squashpants

In the early to mid-Sixties, I was a teenager. Thanks to puberty, I had a new toy to play with: my own budding sexuality fueled by hormonal changes running wild.

In this period, I was greatly invested in finding whatever I could that would strum my burgeoning libido, and if it wasn't the girls in my school classes, it was whatever I could find on TV. The nice thing about the latter is then when I did find something that stimulated me, I could actually do something about it, that is, if the timing was right.

In this period, TV was nothing like it is now. The amount of titillating material to be found on the tube was infrequent and spotty, but for the vigilant, stuff could be found.

One day, after school, I came home to find my sister and a friend in the living room, chatting away while the TV was on in the background. My attention was drawn immediately to the TV as the movie was in color, an unusual occurrence back then.

The movie was (TA-DAAA!) THE WARRIOR EMPRESS (aka "Saffo, Venere di Lesbo", 1960).

It was the scene where Sappho lay grieving on a couch in her chamber, attended by her attending ladies, while Hyperbius fusses at her. Tina Louise is on her stomach, in a low-cut bustier, with a fair amount of cleavage evident.

This riveted my attention at the outset. I was stunned and turned on, for sure. When the scene wrapped up, the camera went to a medium shot showing her ladies-in-waiting, who were attired in low-cut toga-type dresses. And this served to raised the level of titillation even higher.

Well, there was no point in getting too excited because it was the middle of the afternoon, my sister and friend were going nowhere.

Rather than torture myself any further, I trudged off to my room and brooded a little bit before moving on to something else a bit happier.

But, although I never saw the movie again as a teenager, I never forgot it.

When the movie finally was available on VHS, I ordered it as soon as I could find someone with a copy to sell.

I was finally able to see the movie in its full length. And see what I missed that day in 1965(?).

Wow! Susy Anderson on the steps talking to Phaon, so awesomely apparently not wearing a bra (Suzy, I mean). Incredible.

It also occurs to me that "Warrior" had probably been cut to ribbons before broadcast on that Houston channel. But to see an unedited version on latenight local broadcast TV would have been teenage boy heaven.